User blog:Varkanax39/Please read this
Okay, so, randomly I was browsing amazon.com one day and what did I find? This. Some company has decided to make a cheap amount of money by selling and redistributing content on Wikia Wikis, including CBW. There's more, though. Here's a "book" on Chicken Bond's Pages, and there's way ''more content being sold on here that shouldn't be. Hundreds of users across wikia have had their works published by this company, Books, LLC, not just us, either. They even have the nerve to take TSC, ITD, TEG, and TDL and ''publish them, without my consent. I'm extremely annoyed about this. I understand that this is allowed to be redistributed by the liscense Wikia uses, but don't these people understand that this is'' a BIONICLE fanfiction wiki?'' That we use content from LEGO? That they're probably violating copyright laws by publishing without LEGO's consent? I put hours of work into writing articles and stories on here. But this is ridiculous, like making a copy of the Firefox browser on a disk and selling it for $20. I found out about this through amazon.com, but Barnes and Noble is also selling copies of these books. This is an insult to Wikia's freedom, in my opinion. What can we do about this, you ask? Well, not much yet. Obviously, all of us have a lot at stake here. But, aside from taking this directly to Community Central (Where I found out about this) I don't know what else we can do. Ideas? Questions? Comments? Should we contact the staff? Please comment, then. Because we have a lot at stake here, possibly the future of our wiki. UPDATE: Okay, I sent a message to a member of the staff, and this is the reply I recieved: *Yes, the selling of this content is a little sneaky, but there's nothing legally wrong with it. *''"It's one thing to write free fanfiction on a wiki for an audience, but another to see a company charging money for something I wrote, without crediting me or LEGO for the content."'' **Wikia is charging advertisers money, and thus earning a profit on content you wrote too, there's nothing different with making money on a book than there is with making money on selling ads. **The book would breach copyright law if they didn't credit you as the author due to the creative commons license, your wiki - I assume cites that LEGO belongs to LEGO, the book would have to do the same. *''"I highly doubt this is attributed correctly"'' **Wikia's ordered a book to check this very fact, if it's not, I imagine they'll get their leigal team on it on our behalf. *If it's legal to put on Wikia, it's probably legal to publish as well. This whole situation is bad, and although it fufills the spirit of the licence (which is designed to get the information out there) - it's designed to make money off people who don't know better. Bear in mind that these books are probabaly printed when someone orders it, so it's possible (if not likely) - that they've never actually printed the book in question, especially with a wiki such as yours where the readers are more likely to get involved. ---- This whole situation is bad, but it looks like it'' is'' legal, after all. My advice is to wait and see, for now. Obviously, we all have a lot in stake here, but Wikia are buying one of the "books", and if they're not attributed correctly, the staff will take legal action. There is more to this, I'm sure. We'll have to wait and see.